Storm St Jude - Please check in if you are OK

[kazeran]

I am starting to suspect that all this weather lark is nothing more than media hype.
Generally speaking, I am fully aware that people have been injured and have even died.
This sort of bad weather happens every year, its weather after all.
I think the media have nothing better to talk about and get some sort of kick out of building up a crisis.
they use their power to scare and manipulate, and when it is all over and is, in general an anti climax, they shrug and say "it would have been much worse if we had not warned you"
Oh thanks, you have disrupted the whole country, scared many people witless and cost the county thousands, possibly millions, because you fancied a "perfect storm" in England, cheers......

[damian_steele]

I am starting to suspect that all this weather lark is nothing more than media hype.

And if they don't give warnings, and the storm does turn out to be as bad as thought, then everyone complains again.

The met office can't really win.

Of course if people had the sense to be reasonably well prepared as a matter of course, instead of just thinking about it now and again, then such dire warnings wouldn't be necessary.

[zaranvalesasterix]

I'm sure they are worried about getting a repeat of the Michael Fish error, so better to be safe than sorry

[shezz]

Winds have woken me up a couple of times during the night with the rain lashing it down BTW this is Essex, woke up this morning and my garden looked liked it had been trashed, branches all over it, part of shed roof off, next doors stuff in mine, looked at my neighbours garden and her's was the same, bird table over, pots all over the place etc etc, went to drive off in my car only to find my side fench laying on the pavement, now this is a 6ft wide and high made of solid wood and ruddy heavy, so I try to pick it up to move, only for it to be blown from me smashing it back to the ground, breaking the top off of it this time.

so looks like i gotta do some garden clearance when I got home.


On the bright side, it did make me go out and get a soup maker, don't know what the connection is tho lol

[BARJOYS]

lost our fence and broken window in back door garden needed a spring clean anyway

[BARJOYS]

Attachment 42259

[madelaine]

It seems to be gathering speed as it travels East.

[kazeran]

I am not trying to provoke a row, I am just saying that the U.K. has storms like this every year. I am not trying to poke the met office in the eye. I am just saying that I find the Media's scaremongering rather out of place and over the top. They select half a dozen bad stories, lump them together in a news story and bingo we have a nationwide disaster, when in fact a few trees have been blown over, some costal areas have had a bit of a hoolie and some sticks have landed in your garden. If taken in perspective its a non story compared to, say major Volcanic erruptions, country's going bankrupt, thousands starving to death and people being shot or blown up. In truth we had some heavy "annual" winds.

[tonyreddevil]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24699748

4 people die

[kazeran]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24699748

4 people die

Hello Tony.
That is my point. Please everyone, don't get angry or have a pop. I am trying to be a realist.
It is truly tragic that four people have lost their lives, but in the great wheel of things, this storm has been nothing more than a series of high winds.
The media have turned this into a headline snatching bit of propaganda or, quite simply put a sideshow.
Storms, real storms cause massive devastation and large loss of life. Does anyone remember the Europe wide "Burns day" storm in the 1990's? over 70 people lost their lives and there have been others.
I simply think that we are really living in a media driven Orwellian type of world, where they try to shape events and tell you/me what to think.
Just for a second, that's all I ask, sit back away from the keyboard and think real hard about it for just second?
Is that really all that happened in the world today?